As one of my predecessors said, our objective is not to take people to heaven, but to prevent humanity from going to hell.

Open markets offer the only realistic hope of pulling billions of people in developing countries out of abject poverty, while sustaining prosperity in the industrialized world.

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

You have to wake up every day ready to start again.

You need younger men in Africa, men and women in African politics.

We have seen recently, almost every major head of state goes to India and says, we believe India should be in the Council. They go back home and do nothing about it. But this cannot be sustained for long. If they want to keep the UN as a global forum where they discuss incidents and take some meaningful decisions, they should [reform].

The Millennium Development Goals can be met by 2015, but only if all involved break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action now.